Hancock Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant
There are certainly some architectural gems in Bedford-Stuyvesant. A researcher in the library today researching her block for the purpose of landmarking it and The Brownstoner making 247 Hancock Street the Building of the Day drew me into another section of our Photography Collection. In the early 70s, BHS president James Hurley, with others, photographed this beautiful block of Hancock Street.
Postcard craze
The recent New Yorker blog post "Off the shelf: Folk Photography" by Rollo Romig about the popularity of postcards renewed my enthusiasm for our collection at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Widely printed, mailed, and collected, we have thousands of postcards depicting a long ago Brooklyn and from one Brooklynite to another. Not only are the images great to see, they show a Brooklyn from years ago that may or may not still exist and the correspondence is fascinating to read. They are somewhat like the tweets, text messages, and emails we send today. At only a penny to send, why not,…
Beautifying Montague Street with Guerrilla Knitting
I think we can all admit there's an aesthetic division on Montague Street in our Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. In one several-block stretch little shops of delicacies, restaurants with sidewalk seating, and cafes to satiate your caffeine addiction abound. However, in just the one block between Clinton and Court Streets, a parking garage, banks, construction and the subway entrance leaves little to admire (excepting the lovely Brooklyn Trust Company, now the Chase Manhattan Bank). I suppose that's why it was attacked by guerrilla knitters this week. I don't know about anyone else, but I…
Bicycling in Brooklyn!
Perhaps others have also noticed that Spring is brewing in Brooklyn. With last weekend's record highs, bicycles and their cyclists came out in force all over the borough. I was one of these people churning over the Williamsburg Bridge on my folding bike on Saturday, parked by the grocery store on Sunday, and commuting via bike path to work on Tuesday. All of which gave me some time to think about bikes! Not only are they a great way to get around New York City, but they have seen some interesting leaps in terms of technology and design. Here are a few of my favorite examples from the…
BHS Gossip here, your one and only source into the non-historical activities at the Brooklyn Historical Society.
Rumor is there was a filming for the holiday episode of Gossip Girl in our humdrum facilities the other day. No, the staff was not lingering in the tile lobby just because Lily, Rufus, and Bart were hanging out in between shoots. Nor were their faces and cameras mashed up against the library's second and third floor windows to catch a glimpse. However, sometime around 10am, an audible scream emanating from 20 St. Ann's students across the street revealed this borough's true feelings for the show that glorifies DUMBO while calling it Williamsburg and secretly shoots in Brooklyn…
Recent Photographic Finds
As told to me by our Library Assistant Extraordinaire, Sarah Steele: This week I began an inventory of four or five strangely organized boxes of Long Island photographs and images. Despite the outdated accession numbers and unknown provenance, a lot of really excellent things have been turning up. My favorite so far is the collection of approximately 40 original photographs from the late 19th century of maritime life on Long Island. Here is the first item from what I hope will become our Long Island Whaling Collection: Amagansett, L.I. Whale taken off Amagansett, Feb. 23, 1907 [now in…
Recent Photographic Find
I have a mystery box. This mystery box is filled with things that come out of drawers, unlabeled boxes, nooks and crannies, seemingly nowhere. Occasionally, I pluck something out of this mystery box and decide what it is, what to do with it, where it came from, and to whom I should show it. This plucking tends to occur on Saturday mornings when the library is scheduled to open in the afternoon. On one such Saturday, I came upon this inconspicuous scrapbook. From the outside, it looks like something haphazardly put together, probably never completed, of ordinary family snapshots. Even…